Sorry it took so long... Blame collage for that.

Anyways, enjoy! ;)

Chapter 15: Accessing the Spirit Temple

The Gerudo Fortress was the main settlement of the Gerudo people that was now turned into a prison due to the majority of the Gerudos obeying Ganondorf, their supposed king. This place was filled with these Gerudo guards patrolling the area in search of intruders, and certainly enough, our heroes were no different.

"This isn't good… Just like Val warned us, there are Gerudo guards everywhere!" Navi trailed. "Be on guard, everyone."

They all nodded and Link went first, going up the stairs cautiously. Seeing two wooden crates nearby, Link decided to hide behind them. Unfortunately, he didn't notice a Gerudo guard at the left side as he went to hide.

"Halt! Stay where you are!" she yelled, catching the attention of all Gerudo guards nearby as they all went after Link, spears pointing at him.

"Oh, shoot…" he thought as he rose his hands in surrender… before one of the guards smacked him upside the head that knocked him out.

Down below, the Mario cast and Navi watched in horror as they saw Link being taken away by the guards.

"Oh no! Link!" Peach cried.

"Good thing we didn't move out of our spot…" Toad remarked.

"Yeah, but now Link has been caught!" Luigi added.

"Where are they taking him, Navi?" Yoshi asked.

"Inside the fortress!" Navi answered.

"Then let's enter it by following the Gerudos. But let's be careful to not make a sound." Mario said before they all followed the Gerudo guards silently towards the entrance to the fortress.

Knowing that the guards will leave right after tossing Link into his cell, the Mario cast decided to jump up a level of the fortress right above the entrance and wait for the guards to come out. Once the guards got out to resume their patrol, the heroes leapt down and went into the entrance.

Meanwhile, with Link…

"Ugh… my achin'…" Link groaned, regaining consciousness and looking up, only to find himself locked in a prison cell. "What the…?"

"I see that you finally woke up." a Gerudo Thief came in. "At least you have some company around here." she motioned to a bunch of other cells with a man inside each one. Link could possibly tell that these were the captured carpenters.

"What do you want with me?!" Link retorted.

"Nothing much, but we heard that Lord Ganondorf is expecting you."

"You…!" Link angrily got up, getting ready to unsheathe his sword, but then he realized that it was not with him and soon noticed it along with the Hylian Shield and all his other weapons at the other side of the room. "Oh no…" he thought alarmed.

"Do you think we're stupid? We took away your weapons before we threw you in! There's nothing you can do about us Gerudo, stupid kid!"

As the Gerudo Thief was speaking, right at the entrance we see the Mario cast sneaking inside quietly. The carpenters noticed them, and unfortunately for the Mario cast, one of them, Ichiro, just so happened to whisper to them:

"Hey, you! All of you over there! You must have a lot of guts to make it here!" the Mario cast's eyes went wide as they made a 'quiet!' gesture to him.

"Ichiro!" the other carpenters whispered angrily at him.

"Huh?! Who goes there?!" the Gerudo Thief turned around, only to see… nothing? "Weird…" she mused before turning her attention to Link and telling him, "Anyways, don't even try to stand in our way! Stay in here and keep quiet!"

She then turns around to leave, although she couldn't help but glance suspiciously at five odd stone statues standing next to the entrance before exiting the room.

Link also noticed the odd statues standing by the entrance and he wondered where did they come from and why do they look awfully familiar: the statues kinda resembled his friends…

Then, in the blink of an eye, the statues shifted into the Mario cast, all of them sporting a tanooki tail, although in Luigi's case it was a kitsune tail. Additionally, Mario, Toad, and Peach were also sporting tanooki ears while Luigi had kitsune ears.

"Glad that trick worked out." Raccoon Mario grinned.

"Phew, I thought we were going to get caught too…" Fox Luigi sighed.

"Guys? How did you turn into statues?" Link asked.

"That was another Power-Up we used." Raccoon Mario explained. "It's called a Super Leaf and it grants us the Raccoon form, hence why we got ears and tails. Not only this Power-Up allows us to fly, glide and attack with our tails, but it can change us into statues."

"Now that's cool."

"Don't worry, Link. We're going to get you out of here." Raccoon Peach assured. "Oh, and also the carpenters."

"But how? There's no key around here."

"We can search for one." Raccoon Toad said.

"But be careful, lads! There're sure to be more than one Gerudo guard somewhere around here…" Ichiro warned.

"Woo! Watch out!" Jiro yelled, and right on cue, the same Gerudo Thief from earlier attempted an ambush from behind the Mario cast, but they dodged her attack. If it wasn't for Jiro's warning…

"I KNEW there was something suspicious about those statues!" the Gerudo Thief hissed before she blew a whistle, and all the Gerudo Thieves who heard it came rushing inside the room with swords in their hands.

"Oh, crap…" Fox Luigi gulped.

"Looks like we have no choice but to fight them." Raccoon Mario took a fighting stance.

"And then again, where's the fun if this was too easy?" Raccoon Toad grinned as the Gerudo Thieves quickly surrounded them, ready to pounce on them.

"Mario, you do have some tricks up your sleeve, right?" Raccoon Yoshi asked.

"I sure do." Raccoon Mario smirked. "Get ready for a festival of Power-Ups!"

"Silence!" a Gerudo Thief yelled and then lunged directly at Mario, only to get a… cat scratch in the face? "YOWCH!"

"What the hell?!" another Gerudo Thief exclaimed as the camera moves to show Mario… in his Cat Suit.

"Meow!" Cat Mario meowed playfully.

The Gerudo Thief who received the scratch growled and then slashed him repeatedly, but Cat Mario jumped up to avoid the attack and did a Cat Dive at her, hitting her directly in the gut and she was knocked to a wall where she fell unconscious.

"Who are these guys?!" a Gerudo Thief questioned.

"Don't question! Just fight!" another ordered… before she and the previous one from above found themselves surrounded… by two Luigis. "Wait, WHAT?! Am I seeing double?!"

The two Luigis smirked to each other before uppercutting the two Gerudo Thieves simultaneously into the air with a Super Jump Punch, before Super Dragon Yoshi came in and shot a fireball from his mouth at them, sending them slamming into a few Gerudo Thieves who were going after Cat Mario.

"Bullseye!" Super Dragon Yoshi cheered.

"Tch, you don't look like someone who's capable of fighting!" a Gerudo Thief mocked Peach, who was the only one with no Power-Ups, but she did had a trick up her sleeve herself.

"Don't say that! You'll make me angry!" Peach teased, before a huge flame surrounded her body when she activated her Rage Vibe and sent waves of fire at a few of the Gerudo Thieves.

After that, Peach activated her Joy Vibe, and the cyclone that surrounded her knocked the rest of the Gerudo Thieves away. However, most of them were getting up, no matter what the Mario cast did, they just keep coming.

"You are hard to kill!" one of them yelled. "Why don't you stay down?!"

"Oh, thanks for the advice!" Toad suddenly came, wearing a red Penguin Suit, as he slid on his belly towards a few of them.

"ARGH!" they yelled as Penguin Toad rammed into them, knocking them around like bowling pins.

"And that's how you do a Strike!" Penguin Toad exclaimed.

"Stop goofing around and fight, weird mushroom thing!" a certain Gerudo Thief ordered as she charges at Penguin Toad with her swords.

"If you insist." Penguin Toad replied casually before shooting an ice ball to freeze her, then ramming into her with a belly slide, sending her straight into a wall.

Peach saw a few more Gerudo Thieves heading straight towards her, so she uses a Super Leaf to turn into Tanooki Peach, where she gained an actual tanooki costume, and knocked all of them to the ground by swinging her tail at them.

"HA-CHA!" Tanooki Peach yelled as she did a Peach Bomber at them, knocking them straight to a wall and into more Gerudo Thieves.

"Just a few more, gang!" Mario grinned as the rest of the Mario cast regrouped while the remaining Gerudo Thieves were standing there, a few with dumbfounded looks. "Let me take care of these ones!" he takes out a Fire Flower to turn into Fire Mario as the Gerudo Thieves watched him smirking at them as he made his palms burst into flames.

"They're too much for us! Should we retreat?!" a Gerudo Thief asked, looking a bit frightened.

"Never! Gerudo never back down from a fight!" another one replied.

"Oh, good. I kind of expected you to not retreat that easily." Fire Mario smirked and then proceeded to shoot fireballs repeatedly at them until he was surrounded. "Oh boy… what am I ever going to do?" he said with a casual shrug before surrounding his fist in flames and punching the ground to create a shockwave of flames to send the Gerudo Thieves away.

After that, Fire Mario proceeded to punch the daylights out of the Gerudo Thieves until there was only one left. Noticing the remaining Gerudo Thief, Fire Mario casually walked over to her, who was trembling in fear.

"Halt! D-Don't come any closer…!" she panicked.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Fire Mario spoke sternly before grabbing her by the collar. "But I'll only let you and the others go if you free Link and the carpenters and allow all of us access to the Haunted Wasteland. Otherwise…" he rose his free hand clenched into a fist, making it erupt into flames.

"Okay, okay! I'll free them! Just let me go!"

"And that other promise?"

"I-I'll explain later!"

"Good." Fire Mario let her go as she went over to each of the carpinters' cells and set them free before doing the same thing to Link. At the same time, all of the Power-Ups' effect on the Mario cast wore off.

"Link!" Navi beamed, flying up to Link. "Thank goodness you're alright!"

"Good to see you again, Navi." Link smiled before turning to the Mario cast as he reequips his weapons, "And all that stuff you just did to all of the Gerudo… Dang. I never expected you all to fight like that!"

"Me neither!" the Gerudo Thief threw in. "By the way, name's Aveil. I used to think that all men, except for the great Ganondorf, and all non-Gerudo women were useless…but now that I've seen how all of you guys fight, I don't think so anymore!" she was of course talking about the Mario cast.

"But why did all of you attack us like that?" Peach asked.

"The exalted Nabooru, our leader, put us in charge of this fortress." Aveil continued. "Nabooru is the right hand to the great Ganondorf, King of the Gerudo Thieves, and that large unknown turtle monster."

"Turtle… monster…?!" the Mario cast thought, as they certainly knew exactly whom was she talking about.

"Her headquarters are in the Spirit Temple, which is at the end of the desert. Now, take these with you." she hands them Gerudo Tokens. "With these membership cards, you will have free access to all areas of the fortress!"

"Nice! Thanks!" Yoshi thanked as he and the others put on the tokens like they were necklaces.

"You're welcome. From now on, you're free to come and go as you please through the gate to the desert."

"That's great, but where can we access the Haunted Wasteland?" Luigi asked.

"Once you exit this fortress, head down the stairs and you'll find a gate to your right with a Gerudo guarding it. That gate will take you to the Haunted Wasteland, where beyond it lies the Spirit Temple."

"Alright. Thanks for the directions!" Link thanked before the heroes exited the fortress.

Upon exiting, they saw that all the Gerudo guards were no longer giving them the stink eye since they each had a Gerudo Token. After going down the stairs, they turned right where they saw a large gate with a Gerudo standing next to it. They went to her and she spoke:

"Hey, rookies! Are you going into the desert?" they all nodded. "I'll open this gate for you, but… You can't cross the desert unless you pass the two trials. The first trial is…the River of Sand! You can't walk across this river! After you cross it, follow the flags we placed there. The second trial is…the Phantom Guide!"

"Oh, come on…" Luigi thought, as usual paling up at the mention of that.

"Those without eyes that can see the truth will only find themselves returning here. You are going anyway, aren't you? I won't stop you… Go ahead!" she then opens the gate.

Ready for the trials up ahead, they took off into the Haunted Wasteland, where the wind there was blowing strong and harsh, kicking sand everywhere, forcing the heroes to shield their faces to prevent any grain of sand from getting into their eyes. Reaching the river of quicksand in front of them, Link crossed it by using his Longshot at the wooden crates while the Mario cast jumped across each of them.

Upon following the flags, they reached a stone structure with a stone tablet at the top that reads:

"One with the eye of truth shall be guided to the Spirit Temple by an inviting ghost."

Of course, Luigi paled up by the mention of 'ghost', but Mario assured him that Link would be their guide and the fact that they can't actually see the ghost unless one of them uses the Lens of Truth. The moment Link used the Lens of Truth, he saw a ghost in front of him who spoke:

"I'll be your guide on your way, but coming back, I won't play! I'll show you the only way to go, so follow me and don't be slow!"

With that, Link followed the ghost, although the Mario cast couldn't see it, but they had Link as their guide. Eventually, they passed their last trial and reached the Desert Colossus.

Once there, Navi sensed a presence behind a cracked wall, so the heroes went there… while some annoying Leevers attempted to attack them, but they were quickly taken care of before Link blew up the wall with a bomb and they all went inside.

Turns out that this cave led to a Fairy Fountain, so after Link played Zelda's Lullaby, the Great Fairy came out and granted him the final magic spell: Nayru's Love, which allowed him to create a barrier around himself.

After that, they all made their way to the Spirit Temple, ready to break its curse since they knew it was the last temple.

The Spirit Temple is a shrine for the Gerudo people to worship the Goddess of the Sand, which was the giant structure seen at the temple's entrance, and also where they keep all the treasure they steal. The walls depicted Gerudo writing, as their language was different from the Hylian one, and the most common motifs for this temple consisted of snakes and suns. About the Goddess of the Sand, it was said that the people of Hyrule say that this Goddess is actually an evil deity due to differences in religion.

However, as soon as the heroes went inside, they looked around and discovered that there was no way to progress any further: there was a large stone block at their right blocking the passage, and there was a small hole at their left, which was too big for Link to go through… well, for the way he is right now.

"Um… what now?" Yoshi asked.

"Well, we obviously can't do anything about that large block." Mario said, pointing at the block before turning his attention to the hole. "But we can crawl in there… if only Link wasn't an adult."

"If that's the case, then we should go back to the Temple of Time!" Navi suggested.

With that in mind, the heroes exited the temple, and at this very exact moment, Sheik leaped down from the large stone arch in front of the stairs and landed right in front of them.

"Past, present, future…" she began to speak, while Rauru as Kaepora Gaebora was flying in the background. "The Master Sword and the Grand Star of Time are ships with which you can sail upstream and downstream through time's river… The port for those ships is in the Temple of Time… To restore the Desert Colossus and enter the Spirit Temple, you must travel back through time's flow… Listen to this Requiem of Spirit… This melody will lead a child and his otherworldly unchanged friends back to the desert."

Sheik takes out her harp and teaches Link the final warp song, the Requiem of Spirit… all while Rauru was watching and listening from above before flying off. Apparently, he can change into Kaepora Gaebora in the future as well…

After the song was learned, Sheik said nothing else before she disappears again.

Everyone just shrugged it off before Link played the Prelude of Light to warp all of them to the Temple of Time. There, they walked towards the Pedestal of Time where Link unsheathes the Master Sword and the Grand Star of Time floats above the Mario cast.

"Ready?" Link asked.

"Yes." the Mario cast nodded.

With that, Link plunges the sword into the pedestal, taking everyone back seven years ago once again.

Now that they were back to the present (past?), Link, who was back as a child again, plays the Requiem of Spirit to take everyone back to the Desert Colossus before they went back into the Spirit Temple.

Inside, they looked for the small hole, only to discover that a Gerudo woman was kneeled down in front of it. With curiosity, the heroes walked up to her.

"Hmm?" she turned around, standing up. "I haven't seen you all around… What do you want?"

"Well… we have nothing to do, really." Link replied with a shrug.

"Wait, you have nothing to do? What good timing! Can you do me a favor, you all?"

"Sure." Mario nodded. "What can we d-…"

"Wait a second." she interrupted Mario. "I want to ask you all first… You wouldn't happen to be one of Ganondorf's…followers…would you?" everyone immediately shook their heads. "Uh-huh! You've all got guts. I think I like you. First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm Nabooru of the Gerudo. I'm a lone-wolf thief."

"Wait, she's Nabooru?!" the heroes thought. "But… why is she being nice to us?" indeed; wasn't she supposed to be working with Ganondorf?

"But don't get me wrong!" Nabooru continued. "Though we're both thieves, I'm completely different from Ganondorf. With his followers, he stole from women and children, and he even killed people! People like you may not know this, but… You have heard about the Gerudo tribe, haven't you?"

"We did." Peach replied. "A Gerudo woman named Val told us about your tribe."

"Really? So you might already know that even though our laws say that lone male Gerudo must become King of the Gerudo, I'll never bow to such an evil man! By the way, what are your names?"

"I'm Link."

"Mario."

"Luigi."

"Peach."

"Yoshi!"

"Toad."

"And Navi!"

"What kind of names are that?" Nabooru questioned. "Well…anyway… I want to ask you a favor… Will you go through this tiny hole and get a treasure that's inside? The treasure is the Silver Gauntlets. If you equip them, you can easily push and pull very heavy things!"

"Exactly the thing we need!" the heroes thought.

"We can get these for us right away!" Toad exclaimed.

"No, no, no! Don't even think about taking this treasure for yourselves!" Nabooru exclaimed. "The Silver Gauntlets won't fit any of you if you try to equip them! I want you to be good little people and give them to me! Ganondorf and his minions are using the Spirit Temple as a hideout. Only the Silver Gauntlets will allow me to sneak deep into the temple. Once there, I'm going to steal all the treasure inside and mess up their plans!"

"Hmm… That might explain why she ended up in Ganondorf's clutches…" the heroes thought.

"How about it? Will you do it?" everyone looked at each other before nodding. "Thanks! You all and I, let's give Ganondorf and his followers a big surprise, shall we? If you can successfully get the Silver Gauntlets… I'll do something great for you!" she then steps out of the way, allowing the heroes to go into the crawl space.

The heroes walked around, taking out a Stalfos, dodging some jars coming to life flying straight at them, dealing with an Anubis, gathering some Silver Rupees, blowing up a wall with a Bombchu, and finally dealing with a tedious block puzzle before they eventually made it through the steps.

"You know, I couldn't help but wonder what that giant statue was for." Yoshi remarked.

"It could be important for later." Mario said as they walked into the next room… where they found a large armored brute sitting on a throne.

"What's that?" Toad wondered as he curiously walked closer to it.

"Wait! Don't come closer to it!" Navi warned.

Too late: once Toad was a few inches away from the armor, it suddenly sprung to life and attempted to swing its giant axe down at him, but he avoided it in time.

"What the heck?!" Luigi flinched.

"Iron Knuckle!" Navi exclaimed. "Its axe is extremely dangerous!"

"All right, let's do this!" Link declared, readying his Kokiri Sword.

The Iron Knuckle slowly walked towards the heroes until it raised its axe and swung it to its sides, but they quickly jumped back. As he jumped back, Link landed a blow with his sword at the Iron Knuckle by doing a jump slash, while Toad fired mushroom spores at it along with Mario shooting fireballs at it.

The Iron Knuckle swung its axe at them again, but they avoided it again before Luigi fired a lightning bolt at it, causing some of its armor to come off as it was stunned. This made the Iron Knuckle really mad and started swinging all over the place.

With that, Toad kept the Iron Knuckle distracted while the rest chipped off more of its armor. Once all of the armor was off, the Iron Knuckle angrily kicked Link down and punched the Mario cast away from it before swinging its axe down at Link, only for him to unleash Nayru's Love and the axe bounced off of the barrier.

Acting quickly, Link got up and impaled the Iron Knuckle with his sword. It let out a cry of agony and fell in defeat, vanishing into blue flames.

"And that's the end of it!" Link exclaimed.

"Great work, Link!" Peach praised.

Then, they went into the next door, taking them outside where a chest was sitting there. Link opened it, taking out the Silver Gauntlets.

"Hmm, Nabooru was right; they're way too big for any of you to use." Navi observed.

"Well, then I guess we should go back and give them to her." Toad said.

But then, they suddenly heard a scream that made them jump.

"Hey! Where are you taking me?!" the one who screamed cried out. "Yeearggh! Let me go!"

"Was that Nabooru?!" Navi asked.

"Down there!" Yoshi pointed down.

Everyone looked to where he was pointing, where much to their surprise, they saw Nabooru being sucked into some sort of black hole as two old hags that could very well be witches were circling around her while riding on their brooms.

"You…you fiends! Ganondorf's minions!" Nabooru yelled before looking up at the heroes. "Everyone! Get out of here! Now! These witches! They're using black magic on me!" she eventually sinks into the black hole before it disappears. The two witches then cackled to each other as they flew into the temple.

"What happened to Nabooru?!" Luigi exclaimed.

"I have no idea… But we have to get back to the future right now!" Link settled before warping everyone back to the Temple of Time.

There, they went back seven years later before going back to the Desert Colossus to enter the Spirit Temple once again, determined to find and save Nabooru.

To be continued…

Let's just say that I had fun writing the showdown against the Gerudo Thieves with the Mario cast... Why separate the carpenters and the fights with the Gerudo Thief from the original game while I can just combine them all at once? ;)

Next up, the adult side of the Spirit Temple! Until then! Please review!